The Admin Experiment
by BlackHorse99
Summary: Based off of James Patterson's best selling series, I have been inspired to write it over using some of my friends here on the site. *Maximum Ride belongs to James Patterson, I own my own name, the users mentioned own themselves as well**
1. Chapter 1

Congratulations. The fact that you're reading this means you've taken one giant step closer to surviving till your next birthday. Yes, you, sitting or laying there, scrolling down the page. Do not X out of this story. I'm dead serious-your life could depend on it.

This is my story, the story of my little family, but it could just as easily be your story too. We're all in this together on this site; trust me on that.

I've never done anything like this, so I'm just going to jump in, and you try to keep up.

Okay. I'm BlackHorse99, but you can call me Black. I've been a member of FanFiction for over a year. I chill with my family, who are three kids not related to me by blood, but still totally my family.

We're-well, we're pretty freaking amazing. Not to sound too full of myself, but we're like nothing you've ever seen before.

Basically, we're pretty cool, nice, smart-but not "average" in any way. The four of us-me, Isabella Elizabeth Haven Spear, Bella for short, Oracle Cosmos, Cosmos is her nickname, and Kris Warrior of Death, we call her Kris-were made on purpose, by the sickest, most horrible "scientists" you could possibly imagine. They created us as an experiment. An experiment where we ended up only 98 percent human. That other 2 percent has had a big impact, let me tell you.

We grew up in a science lab /prison called School, in cages, like lab rats. It's pretty amazing we can think or speak at all. But we can-and so much more.

There was one other School experiment that made it past infancy. Part human, part wolf-all predator: They're called Social Life Erasers, though we pretty much just call them Erasers. They're tough, smart, and hard to control. They look human, but when they want to, they are capable of morphing into wolf men, complete with fur, fangs, and claws. School uses them as guards, police-and executioners.

To them, we're six moving targets-prey smart enough to be a fun challenge. Basically, they want to rip our throats out. And make sure the world never finds out about us.

But I'm not giving up just yet. I'm telling you, right?

This story could be about you-or your friends. If not today, then soon. So please, please take this seriously. I'm risking everything that matters by telling you-but you need to know.

Keep reading-don't let anyone stop you, not even your parents.

-Black.

And my family: Bella, Cosmos and Kris.

Welcome to our nightmare.

* * *

><p>The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective. Take right now, for instance.<p>

Run! Come on, run! You know you can do it.

I gulped deep lungfuls of air. My brain was on hyper-drive; I was racing for my life. My one goal was to escape. Nothing else mattered.

My arms being scratched to ribbons by a briar I'd run through? No biggie.

My bare feet hitting every sharp rock, rough root, pointed stick? Not a problem.

My lungs aching for air? I could deal.

As long as I could put as much distance as possible between me and the Erasers.

Yeah, Erasers. Remember those? Right now they were after me.

See? That snaps everything into perspective.

Run. You're faster than they are. You can outrun anyone.

I'd never been this far from School before. I was totally lost. Still, my arms pumped by my sides, my feet crashed through the underbrush, my eyes scanned ahead anxiously through the half-light. I could outrun them. I could find a clearing with enough space for me to-

Oh, no. Oh, no. The unearthly baying of bloodhounds on the scent wailed through the trees, and I felt sick. I could outrun men-all of us could, we all had advanced speed. But none of us could outrun an Eraser.

They were getting closer. Dim light filtered in through the woods in front of me-a clearing? Please, please… a clearing could save me.

I burst through the trees, chest heaving, a thin sheen of cold sweat on my skin.

Yes!

No-oh, no!

I skidded to a halt, my arms waving, my feet backpedaling in the rocky dirt.

It wasn't a clearing.

In front of me was a cliff, a sheer face of rock that dropped to an unseeable floor hundreds of feet below.

In back of me were woods filled with psycho Erasers with guns.

Both options stank.

I looked over the deadly drop.

There was no choice, really. If you were me, you'd have done the same thing.

I closed my eyes, held out my arms… and let myself fall over the edge of the cliff.

The Erasers screamed angrily, and then all I could hear was the sound of air rushing past me.

It was so damn peaceful, even for just a second. I smiled.

Then, taking a deep breath, I unfurled my wings as hard and fast as I could.

Thirteen feet across, midnight black with purple and green undertones, that was more beautiful than any night. They caught the air, and I was suddenly yanked upward, hard, as if a parachute had just opened.

Ouchhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Note to self: No sudden unfurling.

Wincing, I pushed downward with all my strength, then pulled my wings up, then pushed downward again.

Oh, my god, I was flying-just like I'd always dreamed.

The cliff floor, draped in shadow, receded beneath me. I laughed and surged upward, feeling the pull of my muscles, the air whistling through my even darker black secondary feathers, the breeze drying the sweat on my face.

I soared up past the cliff edge, past the furious Erasers.

One of them, hairy-faced, fangs dripping, raised his gun. A red dot of light appeared on my torn pajamas. Not today, you jerk, I thought, veering sharply west so the sun would be in his hate-crazed eyes.

I'm not going to die today.

.-._.-._.-.

I jolted upright in bed, gasping, my hand over my heart.

I couldn't help checking my tank top and yoga pants. No red laser dot. No bullet holes. I fell back on my bed, limp with relief.

Geez, I hated that dream. It was always the same: running away from School, being chased by Erasers, me falling off a cliff, then suddenly WHOOSH! Wings, flying, escaping! I always woke up feeling a second away from death.

Note to self: Give subconscious a pep talk for better dreams.

It was chilly, but I forced myself out of my cozy bed. I threw on clean pants and a tee shirt, and a large comfy sweatshirt-amazingly, Kris had put the laundry away.

Everyone else was still asleep: I could have a few minutes of peace and quiet, get a jump on the day.

I glanced out the hall windows on the way to the kitchen. I loved this view: the morning sunlight breaking over the crest of the hills, the clear sky, the deep shadows, the fact that I could see no sign of any other people.

We were hidden in the hills, safe, just me and my family.

Our house was a pretty modern, tree house looking structure with five floors and four bathrooms. The windows were all lined up with trees, providing a fresh air to blow abut the house.

Here, my family and I could be ourselves. Here, we could live free. I mean literally free, as in, not in cages.

LONG story. More on that later.

And of course here's the best part: no grown-ups.

Yep, no one telling us what to do, what to eat, when to go to bed. Well, except me. I'm one of the ranking users, so I try to keep things running as best I can. It's a hard, thankless job, but someone has to do it.

We don't go to school, either, so thank God for the Internet, because otherwise we wouldn't know nothin'. But no schools, no doctors, no social workers knocking on our door. It's simple: If no one knows about us, we stay alive.

I was rustling around for food in the kitchen when I heard sleepy shuffling behind me.

"Mornin, Black."

"Morning, Cosmos'" I said as the heavy-lidded girl slumped at the table. I gave her a quick hug.

Cosmos blinked up at me, her gorgeous blue eyes round and trusting. "What's for breakfast?" She asked, sitting up. Her long blond hair stuck up in little wisps all over her head, reminding me of a fledgling's downy feathers.

"Um, it's a surprise," I said, my voice strong.

I had no idea what I was making.

"I'll pour juice," the blonde offered, and my heart swelled. She was a sweet, sweet friend.

I was looking in the fridge with naive hope-maybe the food fairies had come-when the back of my neck prickled. I straightened quickly and spun around.

"Will you quit that?" I said, annoyed.

Bella always appeared like that, out of nowhere, like a jack in the box, but no control over the wind-up. She regarded me calmly, already dressed and alert, her dark brown hair brushed back.

"Quit what?" She asked calmly. "Breathing?"

I rolled my eyes. "You know what."

With a sigh, she moved over into the kitchen area. "I'll make eggs," She announced.

I surveyed the kitchen. Breakfast was well under way. "Cosmos? You set the table. I'll go get Kris."

My admin was the sleeper in the last bedroom. I pushed the door open.

"Hey, you're already dressed," I said, leaning over to hug her.

"Hi, Black!" Kris said, tugging her blond hair out of her collar. "Can you do my zipper?"

"Yep." I turned her around and started doing the zipper of her tight tank.

I'd never told the others, but I just loved, loved, LOVED Kris. Maybe because I was her first mod. Maybe because she was just so incredibly sweet and loving.

"Maybe because I'm like the perfect admin," said the other blonde, grinning, and turning around to look at me. "But don't worry, Black. I won't tell anybody. Besides, I love you too." She threw her skinny arms around my neck. I hugged her back, hard. Oh, yeah-must've said something out loud that should've stayed in my head. I seem to do that a lot.


	2. Chapter 2

"I want to go pick strawberries today," Kris said, still grinning, scooping up a forkful of scrambled eggs. Breakfast was past it's climax, everyone was on their last mouthfuls. "They're ripe now."

"Okay! I'll go with you," Cosmos giggled.

"I'm done, I'll go too." Bella voiced, getting up quickly and taking her plate to the sink.

"We'll all go," I said.

Outside, it was beautiful, only a few clouds in the sky, with the first real heat of May. We carried buckets and baskets as Kris led us to a huge patch of wild strawberries.

She held my hand. "If you make cake, I can make strawberry shortcakes," she said happily.

"Yeah, that'll be the day, when Black makes edible food." I heard Bella say. "I'll make it, Kris."

I whirled. "Oh, thank you!" I exclaimed. "Okay, I'm not a fabulous cook. But I can still kick your ass, and don't you forget it!"

They all were laughing, Bella was holding up her hands in denial.

Next to me, Kris tensed, froze and screamed.

Startled, I stared down at her, and in the next second, men with wolfish muzzles, huge canines, and reddish, glinting eyes dropped out of the sky like spiders. Erasers! And it wasn't a dream.

There was no time to think. We were trained not to think-just to act. I launched myself at an Eraser, spinning and planting a hard, roundhouse kick in his barrel chest. His breath was knocked out of him, and the odor was just awful, like raw sewage left out in the hot sun.

After that, it was like a movie, a bunch of superimposed images that hardly seemed real. I landed another blow, then an Eraser punched me so hard that my head snapped around and I fel tmy lip split. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bella holding her own against an Eraser-until two more ganged up on her, and she went down under flailing clawed hands.

I leaped toward her, only to be grabbed again. Two Erasers pinned my arms behind my back. Another leaned in, his reddish eyes glinting with excitement, his jaw fully morphed out and snoutlike. He pulled back his hand and curled it into a fist. Then he brought it in hard, punching me in the stomach. An unbelievable pain exploded inside me, and I doubled over, dropping like a stone.

Dimly, I heard Kris screaming and Cosmos crying.

_Get up!_ I told myself, trying to suck in air. _Get up!_

As weird mutant kids, we're much, much stronger than regular grown-up humans. But Erasers aren't regular grown-up humans, and they outnumbered us as well. We were dog meat. I struggled to my hands and knees, trying not to retch.

I staggered to my feet, bloodlust in my eyes, ready to kill. Two Erasers held Cosmos's hands and feet. They swung her hard, and she went sailing, hitting her head against a tree. I heard a small pained cry, and then she lay crumpled among the pine needles.

With a hoarse, blood-muffled shout, I ran up and clapped my cupped palms around an Eraser's furry ears. He shrieked as his eardrums popped, and he fell to his knees.

"Black!" Kris screamed, high-pitched and terrified, and I spun around. An Eraser had her by the arms, and I raced forward. Two Erasers fell on me, knocking me down, one pressing a heavy knee into my chest. I wheezed and struggled, and one of them cuffed my face hard, his ragged claws digging deep welts in my abdomen, already sore from the punch earlier.

Dizzily, I fell back, the two Erasers pinning me, and with uncomprehending horror I saw three other Erasers stuffing Kris, my admin, into a rough sack. She was crying and screaming, and one of them hit her.

Frantically struggling, I tried to scream but could make only a hoarse, choked cry. "Get off me, you stupid, freaking-" I choked, but I was slammed back again.

An official looking Eraser leaned over me, smiling horribly.

"Black," he said, and my stomach clenched-did I know him? "Good to see you again," he went on conversationally. "You look like crap. You always acted so much better than everyone else, so this cheers me up."

"Who are you?" I gasped, feeling cold at the center of my being.

The Eraser grinned, his long, sharp teeth barely fitting in his jaw. "You don't recognize me? I guess it's been a while."

My eyes went wide with sudden, horrified recognition.

"Teacher," I whispered, and he laughed like a mad person. Then he stood up. I saw his huge, black boot come at my head, felt my head jerk to one side, and everything went black.

My last thought was terror: Teacher was School's most notorious killer. And now he had Kris.

…

"Black? Black!" Cosmos's voice was elevated and very scared.

I heard a horrible, low moan, and then realized it had come from me.

She and Bella were leaning over me, concerned expressions on their bruised, bloodied faces.

"I'm okay," I croaked, having no idea if I was or not. Memory came rushing back, and I tried to sit up. "Where's Kris?" My voice was strained.

Bella's blue eyes met my golden ones. "She's gone. They took her."

I thought I might faint again. I remembered being nine years old, looking out the wired-glass lab window, watching the Erasers in the semidarkness. The whitecoats had released chimpanzees onto School grounds and let newly made Erasers loose after them. Teaching them how to hunt.

The sounds of the chimpanzees screeching in terror and pain still echoed in my mind.

That was who had Kris now.

Rage overwhelmed me-why couldn't they have taken me instead? Why take her? Maybe I would have had a chance…maybe.

Shakily, I got to my feet. My head was spinning, and I had to lean against Bella, hating my weakness.

"We've got to get her," I said urgently, trying to stay upright. "We've got to get her before they-" Horror-filled images flashed through my mind-Kris being chased, being hurt, being killed. I gulped, shutting them down.

"Check in, guys-are you up for a chase?" I examined the two of them. They looked like they'd been stuffed into a blender set on "Chop." And possibly "Maim."

"Yes," Cosmos said in a tear-choked voice.

"I'm up," said Bella.

To my horror, hot tears momentarily blurred my vision. I wiped them away with the back of one hand and called on fury to keep me going.

Just then Cosmos cocked her head slightly. It was a clue for me to start listening intently. Then I heard it too: a faint engine noise.

"There!" She said, pointing.

The three of us ran stiffly and clumsily toward the sound. A hundred yards through the woods brought us to a sharp drop-off maybe fifty feet above an old, unused logging road.

Then I saw it: a black Humvee, dull with dust and mud, bumping roughly over the unpaved road. My heart pounded. I knew, just knew, Kris was inside. And she was on her way to a place where death came as a blessing.

It wasn't going to happen, not while I was still breathing.

"Let's get her!" I cried, then backed up about ten feet. The others scurried out of my way as I ran to the edge and simply jumped out into space.

I started to fall toward the road.

Then I unfurled my black wings, fast, catching the wind.

And I began to fly.

...

You see, that nightmare I had is actually hard to tell apart from my real life. My friends and I really did used to live at a freaking hell called School. We were created by scientists, whitecoats, who grafted avian DNA onto our human genes. We were bird kids, a flock of four. And the Erasers wanted to kill us. Now they had our admin.

I gave a strong push down and then up, feeling my shoulder muscles working to move my thirteen-foot wingspan.

I banked sharply, heading after the Humvee. A quick glance back revealed that Cosmos had jumped out after me, and then Bella. In tight formation, we swerved down toward the car. Bella snatched a dead branch off a tree. She dropped straight down and smashed it against the Humvee's front windshield.

The vehicle swerved, a window rolled down. A gun barrel poked out. Around me, trees started popping with bullets. The smell of hot metal and gun smoke filled the air. I looped back into the tree line, still tracking the car. Bella smashed the windshield again. Bullets spit from several windows. She wisely sped away.

"Kris!" I screamed. "We're here! We're coming for you!"

"Up ahead," called Bella, and I saw a cleTeacherng maybe two hundred yards away. Through the trees, I could barely see the greenish outline of a chopper. The Humvee was bouncing heavily over the rutted road. I met Bella's eyes, and she nodded. Our chance was when they moved Kris from the car to the chopper.

It all happened so fast, though. The Humvee braked awkwardly, sliding in the mud. The door burst open, and an Eraser sprang out. Bella dropped on him, then recoiled with a yell, his arm dripping blood. The Eraser sped toward the chopper, throwing himself through the open hatch. A second Eraser, showing his huge yellow canine teeth, leaped from the car and hurled something into the air. Shouting, Cosmos pulled backward fast as a grenade exploded in front of her, spewing chunks of metal and tree bark everywhere.

The chopper's rotor was picking up speed, and I shot out from behind the trees. They were not going to get Kris. They were not taking her back to that place.

Teacher jumped out of the car, carrying the sack with Kris in it.

I tore toward the chopper, fear and desperate anger making my blood sing. Teacher threw Kris's sack through the open door. He jumped in behind, an incredible athlete himself.

With a furious roar, I sprang up and caught hold of the chopper's landing skid just as it took off. The metal was hot from the sun and too wide to hold. I hooked one arm over it, trying to steady myself.

The massive downdraft from the rotors almost snapped my wings in half. I pulled them in, and the Erasers laughed, pointing at me as they closed the glass hatch. Teacher was right there. He picked up a rifle and aimed it at me.

"Let me tell you a secret, old pal, old chap," Teacher yelled at me. "You've got it all wrong. We're the good guys!"

"Kris," I whispered, near tears. Teacher's claw tightened on the trigger. He would do it. And dead, I would be no use to anybody.

My heart breaking, I let go, falling fast, just as I saw a tousled blond head shake itself free of the sack.

My admin, flying away toward her death.

And, trust me on this, things much worse than death.

…

We all have great vision-raptor vision. So we had the excruciating pain of watching the helicopter take Kris away for much longer than the average person. My throat closed with a sob. I felt like they had chopped my own right wing off, leaving a ragged, gaping wound.

"Black, what are we gonna do?" Cosmos's eyes were swimming with tears. She was bruised and bloody, her fists clenching and unclenching anxiously. "They have Kris."

Suddenly I knew I was going to implode. Without a word, I pushed off from the ground, wings out, taking off as fast as I could.

I flew out of sight, out of the others' hearing. Ahead was a huge Douglas fir, and I landed ungracefully on one of its upper branches, maybe 175 feet in the air, scrabbling to catch hold because I'd overshot. Gasping, I clung to the limb.

_Okay, Black, think. Think! Fix this! Figure something out._

My brain was flooded with too much thought, emotion, confusion, rage, pain. I needed to get a grip.

But I couldn't get a grip.

It was like I had just lost my sister.

"Oh, God, Kris, Kris, Kris!"

Yelling as loud as I could, I made fists and punched the chunky bark of the fir tree hard, over and over, until finally actual pain seeped into my seared consciousness. I stared at my knuckles, saw the blood, the missing skin, the splinters.

The physical pain hurt much less than the mental kind.

My Kris had been snatched away. She was with bloodthirsty man-wolf mutants eager for her blood who would turn her over to despicable lab geeks who wanted to take her apart. Literally.

Then I was crying, clinging to the tree as if it were a lifeboat from the Titanic, and I sobbed and sobbed until I thought I'd make myself sick. Gradually, the sobs slowed to shudders, and I wiped my face on my shirt, leaving streaks of blood.

I sat in the tree until my breathing calmed and my brain seemed to be hitting on most cylinders again. My hands were killing me, though.

Note to self: Stop punching inanimate objects.

Okay. It was time to go down and be strong, to get everyone together, to come up with Plan B.

And one other thing-Teacher's last words were still screaming in my brain: We're the good guys.


End file.
